An entertaining and eminently capable comics writer, Roger Stern is
perhaps best recalled for his work on the Superman strip in Action
Comics, Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and an especially
memorable collaboration with John Byrne on Captain America in 1980-81.
What you may not know is Sterno's career stretches back to Charlton
(sorta) and the fanzines. The following E-mail interview took place in
January, 2001.

(excerpt)

CBA: Do you recall meeting John Byrne for the first time? What was your relationship and did you collaborate early on material?
Roger Stern: Yes, that would have been the July 4th weekend of 1974.
John and I had corresponded prior to that, and I think we might have
even chatted on the phone once or twice, but that was our first
face-to-face meeting. By that time, of course, we had already worked
together on the Rog-2000 strip which wound up appearing in CPL #11. Bob
(Layton), John, our pal Larry Brnicky, and I all converged on Duffy
Vohland's apartment in Brooklyn just prior to the '74 Seuling Con, and
that's where John and I met. (Anyone who had any drawing ability wound
up inking backgrounds on a George Perez story for Monsters Unleashed.)
The reason we were all in New York was that we were premiering a
double-issue of CPL—in the guise of the Charlton Portfolio—at the
convention. In fact, it was at that convention that Nick Cuti saw the
art for the first Rog-2000 strip. And that led to John's getting work at
Charlton, drawing Rog as a backup in E-Man. That led to Wheelie and the
Chopper Bunch, Doomsday +1, and Space: 1999... and, indirectly, to
"Iron Fist" at Marvel.

NOTE - There's a discrepancy in the credits for #8 - your checklist has
Rich Buckler as a penciller (since Buckler laid out the rejected splash
page?), the GCD listing has Buckler as an inker on the Perez-pencilled
tale, while the Perez Archives listing doesn't list Buckler at all.
Sometimes the GCD listings get stuff wrong - note that their listing for
#7 makes no mention of the Perez/Giacoia illo of Gullivar Jones.

This page was supposed to have been the opening splash for a story in
Monsters Unleashed #8. Since this was very early in George Perez's
career (1975), the page was first laid out by Rich Buckler. It was then
penciled with extreme detail by Perez. It was then supposed to have been
inked by Pablo Marcos, however it was rejected by the editor and
redrawn.

The editor's comments read: "Where are Chak + Heru? Where are the tents
outside city. Above corpse should be dressed more like one of the
hither-people."